Dan Martin has once again gone on the attack at the Tour de France; the 34-year-old Israel Start-Up Nation rider spending most of today's stage 17 in the Alps off the front in a quality breakaway of Grand Tour stage winners.
After the first half-hour of racing was run off in very aggressive fashion a large group of 21 riders broke clear, though that was whittled down to just five after the first climb of the stage.
In that five-man move with Dan Martin were Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers), Gorka Izagirre (Astana), Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and yesterday’s stage winner Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe).
Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott) tried to get across to them but failed. However, the five-man breakaway and Impey were off the front when the racing reached the intermediate sprint meaning the sprint back in the bunch was for 7th place.
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That bunch gallop for 7th at the intermediate sprint was won by points classification leader, Irishman Sam Bennett, from his Deceuninck-QuickStep team mate Michael Mørkøv.
Then followed Bennett’s rivals for the green jersey; Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe) and Matteo Trentin (CCC Team) – the result ensuring the Irish cyclist extended his lead in the classification.
Up front, Dan Martin and his breakaway companions pressed hard and had a gap of six minutes by the time they reached the Col de la Madeleine, at just over 17km in length.
Kämna was dropped on that climb, where the Bahrain McLaren team of Mikel Landa drove hard on the front of the whittled down peloton and significantly trimmed back the gap to the breakaway.
While the gap between breakaway and bunch was more than halved on the climb, it mattered little to Dan Martin as he was dropped on the descent and was caught by the large Bahrain McLaren-led group of yellow jersey Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma).
On the final climb of the day, the Col de la Loze, the surviving
breakaway men were all caught, with Carapaz the last to yield on the 21.5km
climb to the summit finish, with brutally steep sections of 24 per cent.
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After Carapaz had been recaptured, Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) attacked inside the final 3km and was marked by Sepp Kuss (Jumbo Visma) as the select group was blown to pieces.
Kuss later dropped back to his team mate and race leader Roglic, who had just 2nd overall Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) for company up the upper slopes of the climb to the finish.
As the finish beckoned, and Lopez rode away to a brilliant solo win, Roglic managed to drop Pogacar and take 2nd on the stage some 15 seconds down on winner Lopez.
After the yellow jersey crossed the line a further 15 seconds elapsed before Pogačar finished; a very significant time gap in the fight for the overall, which was further extended to 17 seconds due to a time bonus picked up by Roglic.
Kuss was 4th on the stage, some 56 seconds down on Lopez, followed by Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo), who was 1:01 down on the stage winner.
At stage end, Roglic still leads the race from Pogačar, now enjoying a 57 second lead over him. Lopez moved into 3rd today after his win and he is 1:26 off the yellow jersey. Porte is now 4th overall, and is 39 seconds off Lopez; time he may yet claw back to make the final podium.
One of the big losers today was Rigoberto Uran; the EF Pro Cycling man having started the stage 3rd overall. He could only manage 9th on the stage some 1:59 down on Lopez and has slid to 6th overall.
And after all the work that Landa's team had done for him, apparently to set up a big attack that never came, the Spanish rider faded to finish in 7th some 1:20 down on Lopez
After his breakaway efforts today, Dan Martin eventually finished in 31st at 20:05. Nicolas Roche (Team Sunweb) was 101st at 28:27 while Sam Bennett was 134th at 30:22 and comfortably inside the time limit.
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